


Diplomacy

by flickerface



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 13:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerface/pseuds/flickerface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Korra walks out, Mako looks like he wants to follow her, but before he can sidle toward the door, Asami just walks right out after her.</p>
<p>Spoilers through Book 1 finale, "Endgame".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diplomacy

When Korra walks out, Mako looks like he wants to follow her, but before he can sidle toward the door, Asami just walks right out after her.

\----

"No," Korra says, "I mean, go away, back to Republic City.  Get on with your life." 

Asami stares at her.  "What are you talking about?" 

"I'm not the Avatar any more.  You don't need to do me any favors."

And then she just starts to stride away.  Like she doesn't care about Asami.  Like she doesn't care about anything. 

Korra's stubborn.  She'll keep walking whatever Asami says.  But Asami says it anyway: "And I'm not Hiroshi Sato's daughter any longer."

Korra stops. 

"When I go back to Republic City--if I go back to Republic City--"  Even to comfort Korra, she can't think about that if.  Once she would never have dreamed of leaving the City.  What was out there for a woman like Asami Sato?  Just fields and huts and roads not smooth enough for her moped.  "This war has stolen a lot of things from a lot of people, Korra."

"Yeah, well, none of the others were the Avatar," Korra says, her voice tight.  She turns to face Asami, and in the light from Katara's house, her eyes glitter with tears.  "I'm supposed to be the Avatar, master all the elements, but they never told me I might lose the ones I'd already gotten."

"You are the Avatar," Asami says.  "And you have mastered all of the elements.  You've just--misplaced them."

Korra laughs.  "Right.  More and more I think maybe I should just let the cycle of the Avatar bring someone new out, someone who hasn't had three of her bending elements permanently _removed._ "

"And in the meantime?"    

Korra says, "What do you mean?"  She hasn't thought it through--maybe just isn't thinking at all.  Asami wants to snarl at her that some people have to live their whole lives without even one bending element. 

Instead, she says, "You die, great"--Korra flinches--"the Avatar gets reborn.  Born.  As a baby.  You're going to dump this whole war on an infant?"

"No, that's not what I--"

"Or you think the world should wait for an Avatar, maybe," Asami says.  "Another sixteen years?  That'd be great.  Maybe the situation will get twice as bad!  All the rest of us would really appreciate the fact that you thought about us."

"But--Amon's--"

"Sure, Amon is gone, but the Equalist movement isn't dead.  My father isn't dead," she says, bitterly.  "Being the Avatar isn't something you can just set down and walk away from, any more than I can walk away from the fact that Hiroshi Sato is my father."  Korra still looks dubious, so she plows on: "Sure, you only have one bending element, but mastering all the elements--it's not just about being able to blast your enemies with any element you please.  Balance," she says, "means knowing how each of the elements works and being able to arbitrate between them.  It means being a diplomat."

Korra doesn't say anything for a minute, while the South Pole wind whips around both of them.  "How…how do you know all of this?" she says eventually.  "About the Avatar?"

Asami bites her lip.  "My mother used to tell me bedtime stories about Aang."

"Oh."  Korra shoves gloved hands in her pockets. 

For a while Asami waits to see if Korra's going to do anything else--storm away, call Naga, run back inside--but Korra just stands there. 

So she says, "Can we go back inside?  I'm getting cold."

Korra jumps, like she'd forgotten Asami was there.  "Oh.  Sorry!"  She waves her hands, and the cold wind runs off Asami like water off a duck's back.  "Yeah.  We can go back inside." 

They're nearly to the door when Korra says, plaintively, "I'm going to really hate being a diplomat, aren't I."

"Just ask Lin about the meetings she had to attend as chief of police," Asami says wickedly, and holds the door open for Korra to go first.


End file.
